prove that he was "a mere rhetorician," 'a romancer in history," whose prejudices glare at you from every page, and whose gorgeous style alone made him what he was. This was like lifting a floodgate. Down upon me rushed a torrent of refutation, in which Macaulay as a man, a writer and a politician, from his early years till his death was portrayed in living colors. His precocity, his eloquence, his devotion to liberty, his vast learning, his wonderful memory, his conversational powers, his generosity and purity of character and his grand successes, were set forth with such earnestness and effect that I could not but surrender.

He evidently had Macaulay "on the brain," but it has done him a great deal of good. His knowledge of English history has that thoroughness and solidity about it which ordinary readers can lay no claim to. He has followed his great hero to France, Spain, Italy, Prussia and India. His enthusiasm for learning and study has been quickened; the great writers of all ages and nations, whom Macaulay loved and praised, it is his ambition, so he says, to be familiar with. He even was for bringing out and reading the musty tomes of Chrysostom, because he had read that when Macaulay went to India, he took these along with him to read for pleasure. Macaulay is, perhaps, a favorable example on account of his own multifarious learning. But every writer has his own peculiar field, and he will lead into it only those who acknowledge themselves to be taken captive by his charms. To love a certain woman, so wrote Dick Steele, was a liberal education, and surely to love some authors is no less. Love of all kinds is supposed to have a remarkable effect in developing the faculties; but there is something about this intellectual love which makes the boy a man almost before he knows it. Macaulay himself owed more to his love of Milton, of Bunyan, of Addison, of Johnson, and of the Greek poets, than to all the hard digging which he went through at Cambridge.

It is only natural that this hero-worship should be especially prevalent among young men. At an age when

they are just beginning to think and read, an author falls in their way who all at once throws open a new world to them. Broad principles set forth by ingenious argument and interesting anecdote, enthusiastic devotion to some great cause, brilliancy of expression, striking thoughts and wide information, are powerful to captivate the mind, which is more open to impressions now than it ever will again. A young man must be a hero-worshiper. He cannot help bowing down before the man who has shed upon him this marvelous light. As he grows older, larger experience and deeper study teach him much that his hero did not mention. He sees that other men have thought and written, perhaps more wisely. And the old hero is seen in a drier light. But I do not believe that he can ever be quite like other writers to his old admirer. The hold which he has obtained upon the man may be loosened but cannot be shaken off by time. It is a relation between two minds which nature has made kindred. They are, as Holmes says, concentric. They rarely have the same circumference, it is true, but must have the same, or nearly the same, center.

W. A. H.

EVENING.

Gently from the twilight sky
Dusky shadows flutter down,

As the lingering sunbeams fly
From the spires above the town.

Rosy tints that lit the East

Rise and softly glide away

To the portals of the West

Where has passed the king of day.

And the meadows, dim and gray
Like an even pavement seem,
Stretching from the peaceful bay
Up along the winding stream.

SCOTT'S "VISION OF DON RODERICK."*

ALTHOUGH of

LTHOUGH the ripest fruits of Scott's poetical labors may not be found in the "Vision of Don Roderick," yet none of his poems has a juster claim on the attention than this comparatively neglected one. Modelled on an old Spanish legend, it is, nevertheless, unique, and in its entire plan, unlike any previous production. For the accomplishment of a present political purpose, the author seizes on an ancient fable whose story dates back eleven hundred years, follows its connection down to the present time, and, prompted by national pride, ventures to predict the future of this same story, as directed by British hands. The legend is briefly this:

* This review was found among the papers of Frank W, Howard,

At the time when the Moors were threatening the overthrow of Spain, Don Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings, had sent the faithful Count Julian to defend Ceutra. During his lieutenant's absence, the king assumed the protection of Julian's daughter, Florinda. He betrayed this trust, and violated the girl; which so enraged her father that for revenge he deserted the cause of Christianity, and joined the Moors in the invasion of his native country. In the original ballad he thus briefly announces this to the king; "I was thy truest soldier; I am thy deadliest foe." Every one knows how by the aid of this injured father the infidels defeated Roderick, and made all Spain to bemoan under subjection the rashness of this last of the Goths, when

"Rose the grated Harem to enclose

The loveliest maidens of the Christian line."

Previous to his defeat, Don Roderick, prompted by curiosity, had descended into a fated chamber or vault, of which it had been foretold that he who entered it should be the last of the Gothic kings. Here he beheld a vision of his impending ruin and death at the hands of the Moors, and the subjection of his country to them.

It is with Roderick's determination to enter the vault, that Sir Walter begins his poem. Of course, however, after his usual style, he treats us to an introduction, in which he appeals to his native wilds for inspiration, taking occasion to remark that this is the first time he has ever asked the favor:

From muse or sylvan was he wont to ask,
In phrase poetic, inspiration fair."

Sent by the "mountain spirit" to Spain in search of a
theme for his minstrelsy, he obeys, and, as the result of
his efforts, he presents us with "The Vision."
The open-
ing stanzas are an example of the author's wonderful facil-
ity for compression of detail. In a few lines be has de-
scribed with vividness a city in the dead of night, and

taking us through Roderick's camp has brought us to "the chosen soldiers of the Royal Guard," whose degeneracy from "their Gothic sires of old," he sets forth with no waste of words. They are complaining of the king's delay within,

Roderick had other matters than soldiers in his mind. He was relieving his overburdened conscience in confession to his priest. But his crimes are such as call for vengeance, and even his confessor cannot give him assurance.

"What of thy crimes, Don Roderick shall I say?
What alms, or prayers, or penance can efface

Murder's dark spot, wash treason's stain away?

For the foul ravisher how shall I pray?"

At last, impatient of his remorse, and resolved to learn the worst, he calls upon the priest for the key

"to that mysterious room,

Where, if aught true in old tradition be,

His nation's future fates, a Spanish king shall see."

Within this curious chamber Don Roderick beholds the vision; and here the poet begins to build for himself. The original vision was merely the destruction of Roderick and his army, completing the Moorish Conquest. Sir Walter, however, for the benefit of this curious king, gets up a panorama, which is intended to be nothing more nor less than a serial representation of three epochs in Spanish history. First appears the Vision proper, and Sir Walter revels in the opportunity therein afforded to his descriptive powers. He is at his best from the confessional to the end of this first vision.

The scene shifts, and Roderick beholds Spain in the glory and ignorance of the 15th century. Christianity has regained its former footing: